“Ambient goes country” is the headline of the blurb promoting that release, but that’s maybe a little bit misleading. I’d suggest that this is country music that’s going on a tentative electronic journey, as pedal steel, acoustic bass and twangy banjo remain firmly at the core, mapping out brooding and sometimes slightly Americana and bluesy patterns, but with some unusual production and atmospheric touches that twist the character a little. There’s also a breadth to the acoustic instrumentation that gives it a more cinematic and high-budget feel, with appearances from a Shankar guitar and an above-average span of percussive sounds.

It’s exemplified by tracks like “Kraag”, with its endearing melodic swagger. Final track “Waterloo” borders gently onto cheese with its plaintive trumpet leading into choral ahhhhh sounds. The two-note suspense work on “Laems”- possibly the National duolian, I have to admit I’m not sure- gives it a slight “60’s spy theme” flavour.

Imagine Ennio Morricone and Acker Bilk collaborating on a spaghetti Western set in a cold Norwegian village, and you’re somewhere near here. An unusual fusion of country and electronics with an emotively grey outlook.

The title and cover artwork of Daniela Orvin’s album imply a private, prosaic and personal domestic environment that we certainly hear in the Bach piano notes and ambience of the opener “Prelude”. But as the half-hour long album (arguably mini-album) unfolds, we are drawn into a more unexpected world. It’s like a soundtrack for a slow-paced sci-fi love story, where early-era Tangerine Dream-style synth work rolls gently and positively over warm textures and pads.

Highlights include the expansive “Unexpected Coincidence” and the soft arpeggios of “Spring Came Early”. The titular introspection gives us moodier pieces like “For Now” and the piano-centric “18,00 From My Balcony”.

At times it’s classical chillout music but built from synthwave-style ingredients, and it really works. The modest duration perhaps works in its favour. Orvin has been doing soundtrack work recently and on this evidence, her work should soon be in demand.

Mount Shrine is a Brazilian project which releases an album which is presented by the label with descriptive words about a winter landscape and a journey to a place where someone can meditate. In other words, this is an ambient release where the focus of the composer is on the development of an atmosphere rather than on an evolution of the form.The voices in the background that open "Winter Restlessness" introduce the listener towards an atmospheric and quiet ambient album where drones slowly evolve in a mid frequencies range so it's really close to classic ambient and the voice carries no real message but it's a way to let the music blend with the listener's environment. Even if it seems static at first sight, the sound nuances of "Moon's Distrust" constantly evolves. The crescendo of "The Silence Between Our Houses" is as predictable as evocative, so underlining the quality of the sound construction. "Foggy Deck", as its name suggests, alternates almost silents moments to droning ones. The field recordings of "Lifeless Indoors" creates an environment in which the listener find himself. "Exile" closes this release with a blurred drone which is gradually focused.While it isn't adding anything new to a canonical form overtly in debt with the classic form of ambient, the quality of sound construction and the comprehension of the concept of this music ensures that a really enjoyable release is done. Recommended for fans of the genre.

M. Geddes Gengras’ tenth release is a gentle fusion of synthetic ambient textures and soft, superslow melodic synthwave pads worked into long, slow and calm sonic baths that you can luxuriate in. Sometimes, soft plucked guitar or guitar-like sounds amble over the top, washed in reverb and sustain, evoking images of wide open spaces with just the faintest twang of electronica-meets-Americana.

“Irwin” is reminiscent of Jean-Michel Jarre’s “Waiting For Cousteau” (the track, rather than the whole album), bubbling along through a broad environment with a strong sense of wonder and very formless melody, while the album’s nearest orbit towards rhythm- manifested in subtle pulses and lower-pitched arpeggiating patterns- borders obliquely with the lighter side of soft techno, but with the emphasis on ‘soft’.

There’s a little bit of grit in certain pieces that differentiates these works from vanilla chill-out fare, for example the lo-fi atmospheric hiss that threads itself through “Cherise”, or the rumbling growls that open “Water Study” which, if you’ve fallen asleep listening to this, might nudge you slightly towards nightmare- but these elements are relatively few and far between.

Fans of Moby’s ambient works- particularly his more recent and indulgent sleep offerings- will find something worth wallowing in here, as will anyone willing or wanting to spend two and a half hours immersed in a warm and meditative fug that manages- just- to avoid most clichés and leave you feeling peaceful and refreshed- or asleep.

Described as an EP, this 9-track, 30-minute mini-album is a collection of work originally written for a Loveless Records re-scoring of the anime Tekkokinkreet, and it’s certainly ‘soundtracky’. It’s purely instrumental, as plaintive, slightly twangy electric guitar plucking blends with rough-hewn mangled electronic environments, pulling contrasts between purer and more conventionally emotive melodic work and harsher, tense environments.

Pieces like the end-credit-friendly “A House By The Ocean” border on instrumental pop and have a notable but not dominant vein of positivity and hope, while other tracks like “Killing Machines” push the melody back (but not out completely) and bring darker, glitched and processed, thoroughly effected experimental noise to the fore.

It’s one of those soundtrack works that feels like it perhaps needs to be sided with the intended visuals in order to be appreciated fully, with some of the tracks seemingly left short to suit the film cut rather than being allowed to breathe. But nevertheless it’s an interesting and fairly introspective work that marks out a composer worth looking out for.